Scottish Daily Mail

BIRTHDAY GIRLS MAKE A BIG SPLASH IN PARIS

- By MIKE DICKSON

NOVAK DJOKOVIC and Rafael Nadal were already into an unschedule­d early supper last night by the time the women’s event had produced two predictabl­y random French Open semi-finalists. A staccato day of rain delays ended with world No 30 Timea Bacsinszky and unseeded Latvian Jelena Ostapenko up against each other for a place in the final. By coincidenc­e, their match tomorrow will take place on their 28th and 20th birthdays respective­ly. Djokovic and Nadal were sent home due to the downpours and find themselves on the early shift of a bumper second Wednesday, with their delayed quarterfin­als starting this morning at 10am ahead of Andy Murray this afternoon. The men’s event was always going to have a more familiar look than that of their female counterpar­ts in the latter stages. It was nearly 8pm by the time Caroline Wozniacki fled from the court, having been finished off in a fourth separate session by world No 47 Ostapenko. The two of them came out with the Dane leading 2-1 in the decider. You would never have known it as she lost the last five games to exit 4-6, 6-2, 6-2. The precocious Ostapenko has plenty of attitude and crunched 38 winners to the six of Wozniacki, who played her usual defensive game. Bacsinszky also had to contend with three breaks for rain to win a match that spanned nearly six hours 6-4, 6-4 against local hope Kristina Mladenovic. The Swiss player of Hungarian heritage gave up the game due to a foot injury five years ago and started work as a waitress to prepare herself for a career in hotel management. Barely two years after making her comeback, she made the semi-finals at Roland Garros, where she took a first set off Serena Williams before being crushed. She reduced the Parisians to silence yesterday by subduing the feisty Mladenovic seamlessly through the hiatuses. ‘We had all the seasons in one day — there was a storm, sunshine and probably even snow,’ she said. The last French hope is now Caroline Garcia, who plays Karolina Pliskova today. The winner of the tournament may come from the other quarter-final, between Simona Halep and Elina Svitolina. The highlight of the expanded men’s programme today is expected to be Djokovic taking on Austria’s Dominic Thiem, the Austrian deemed to be a future champion.

MEN’S matches in the Davis Cup will be the best of three sets, the Internatio­nal Tennis Federation board has agreed. Davis Cup ties will remain at three days, with the doubles rubber kept on the middle day and still the best of five sets.

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